


abyss of memory

by discordiansamba



Series: abyss of memory [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-19 13:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14238132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discordiansamba/pseuds/discordiansamba
Summary: AU. He wakes knowing only two things- that he is wrong, and that he has to get away from here.





	1. marmora side

**Author's Note:**

> And now for something that I've been tinkering with off and on for the past week or so! This is meant to be a two shot, so there will be another entry (the paladin side!) after this one, though I don't have any real plans to extend it beyond that. This is actually something of an offshoot of another idea that I'm tinkering with that will take the form of a multi-chapter story, but that one's very much still a work in progress as I decide just how I want to do it. It'll be a doozy whenever I do get around to it, though!

He woke knowing nothing.

He knew nothing, and yet, faintly, he's aware that something is wrong.

Of course something is wrong. It's a ridiculous thing to say. The absence of _knowing_ is wrong. The yearning abyss where his memories should be is wrong. He reaches back as far as he can, but no matter how deep he goes, there is still nothing.

But it's more than that, this feeling of wrongness.

His face, he feels, is wrong. He just doesn't understand why.

He doesn't remember.

He _can't_ remember.

He vaguely knows where he is. He's a captive, of some sort. He's on a ship, but he doesn't know _where_ \- didn't think he'd know where even if he knew everything he should know.

He doesn't know where he is, only that he shouldn't be here.

He knows that if he doesn't get out of here, something far worse than _not knowing_ will happen. He doesn't know what that might be- maybe his memories are gone, but his instinct is still there, made sharper in the absence of knowing.

They tell him that he cannot afford to stay, that if he stays, he will lose something far more important than some simple memories.

Himself, he thinks. He'll lose himself. For whatever much that counts as, when he has no idea who that is.

(Only the dim feeling that his face is wrong. His eyes are wrong. His skin is wrong. He just doesn't remember what is _right_.)

He has to get out of here. He knows that, knows it in his bones. There is a _witch_ here, that he knows, and the witch wants something from him, something which he cannot and _will not_ give her. He must try and get away somehow, though he gets the feeling he's already tried this.

He licks his lips and knows his teeth are wrong too. But he can use them, _will_ use them- he has no weapons but he is not defenseless.

There is chaos on the ship now, and he senses that this is his time to get away. He doesn't know what the source of it is, but he's not going to waste what may be his only chance. They want to move him somewhere else, off the ship, away from whatever is causing the trouble.

The witch is not here right now, but she will come in time. He will not let her, will not be here when she comes, will not be taken to her.

His hands are bound, but his legs are free. Then too, are his hands, and he ignores the pain from the blade that severed the cuffs, that skirted too close to his back. He has no idea where he will go, only that he _must_ go, all of instincts screaming at him that a suffering more vast than not knowing who he is awaits him if he does not.

The source of the chaos finds him. It was looking for him.

He tenses, watching them with caution, fur (it's wrong, that's _wrong_ ) raised. They are not like the others on the ship, the sentries and the soldiers. A mask and a blade, and then just a blade, because he shows his face and he recognizes that he is one of _them_ , but he is not an enemy.

(He is one of them too.)

(He doesn't know who _them_ is.)

He thinks that he cannot understand him at first- thinks him primal, _feral_. He dimly realizes he is on all fours, tail (wrong, _wrong_ ) lashing wildly behind him, giving into the only thing that he has left to get him out of here- his instincts.

If he goes with this one, he can get out of here, he senses- and the man says as much, tells him his name is Ulaz. Ulaz, who recognizes his attire as belonging to that of a prisoner, who tells him they must escape from this place, who asks if he has a name, still uncertain if the one he's asking knows how to speak.

He has no name to give him. Maybe once, but no longer.

Ulaz understands that he understands, and looks relieved. He intended to take him from here one way or another, but this makes things easier. They escape the ship together, and he can feel the witch's clutches slip away from him, only breathing with ease when he senses that they are gone.

Then he is faced with exhaustion, so powerful, it overtakes him in a fell swoop. He is safe, he knows this, so he allows himself to succumb to it.

He has no name, but at least he is _free_.

* * *

The child was so light- far too light- in his arms.

Even for it's small size, it was simply too light. It was clear that it hadn't been eating well, no more than the bare minimum to keep it alive, if that. Underneath it's thin layer of lavender fur, soft as an infant's fuzz, were marks that indicated chafing, where restraints had been placed and kept there, for a long time.

He wasn't sure what to expect when he'd raided the prisoner transport. It had been against Kolivan's orders- the mission was too risky for a single Blade, and there was simply no time to mount a full scale one. There wasn't enough information, not about the ship, nor who it was carrying.

All they knew was that it carried a single prisoner, and that every message sent from the ship was encoded, using an encryption system the likes the Blade of Marmora had never seen.

But his instincts had told him to go- and so he went.

He didn't know what he'd expected to find there, but most certainly, he did _not_ expect it to be a half-feral Galra child. One who had already been in the process of escaping by the time he reached him, one whose voice rasped with disuse as he told him he didn't know his own name.

The child was sleeping now- and had been for some time. At first, Ulaz thought that he would stir for sure when he picked him up, but it made no move to wake up. It would seem that it had decided to put his trust in him, and with that, had given itself to one of the body's most primal needs- sleep.

Who knew when the last chance was for the child to sleep well? At the very least, it must have been there for several weeks, if not longer still. It was wisest to leave him to it, and wait to question him later.

Provided that the child could give them any answers.

He suspected not.

Careful to lay down the child with care, Ulaz made certain that it was secure in it's resting place. Compared to how he had first found it, hissing, fur raised, this was much better. Since it had spoken, it clearly had some measure of sentience- enough to understand him, at the very least.

It was not without documentation that Galra who were forced to endure harsh conditions for long periods of time would lapse back into a more primal state of being. And being held in a Galra prison ship for an extended period of time would more than qualify.

It was somewhat strange looking, the fur on it's head such a starkly different color from the rest of him. Black, bedraggled, as if it had gone without care for too long.

He would have to make a full report to Kolivan, and soon, he knew. But perhaps, he thought, it would be wisest to remain where he was until the child woke up. It had chosen to put it's faith in him, and he should reward that, by making sure it knew it was safe from the moment it woke up.

Inside of the communications base, hidden away in the space time fold, there was no safer place for it to be.

* * *

The child woke with a shock, and Ulaz was quick to quiet it.

"It is alright, young one." Keeping his tone soothing, Ulaz was careful not to intrude too much on the child's personal boundaries. "You are safe."

Slowly but surely, the child grew less fretful. It took a whiff of the air, held tension washing out of it's shoulders, as it seemed to confirm that he was no longer where he had been so desperately trying to escape from. Yellow eyes fell upon him in due time, and it seemed to take the child a moment to place him.

"Ulaz." He rasped.

He recalled his name. Good.

"Yes." Ulaz said, giving him a nod of his head. "You have nothing to fear here, young one. We are far away from where you were before. They will not find us here."

The child looked hesitant still, though there was hope lingering in his eyes. It's Galran was strange, stilted, as if it _knew_ it, but had never cause to actually _speak_ it before now. "The witch will not find us here?"

"The witch?" Ulaz questioned, willing himself to not allow his blood to freeze. "Zarkon's witch?"

What had the child done to earn her attention?

The child's reply, however, was perhaps the most puzzling thing yet. Brows furrowed, he searched his face, as if he expected to find answers there. "Who is Zarkon?"

Now that, Ulaz did blink at. How could a Galra child, imprisoned on one of the empire's very own ships, _not_ be aware of who the emperor was? The notion that they might have been raised there since it was a mere infant was a horrifying one, but no- he had a rough time imagining that anyone would have bothered to teach him words, were that the case.

Another theory quickly presented itself to him, and Ulaz frowned.

"The witch cannot find you here, young one. I will see to it myself." He told him. "But you must tell me something- do you know why you were on that ship?"

"I-" the child began to say, before he stopped himself, the anxious flicking of it's tail telling of it's own turmoil, "...I don't."

"I've just," he spoke again, sounding as if he were trying to process the answer for himself, "...I've just always been on that ship."

"For how long?" Ulaz asked, making sure to keep his tone steady.

"For... for as long as I can remember." The child told him.

"Which is?" Another gentle push, and he would get the confirmation that he feared.

"...not very long." The child admitted with a whisper. "I don't... I _can't_ remember anything."

And there it was, out in the open. Just as he feared.

Traumatic memory loss was one possibility, but when Zarkon's witch was involved, nothing was ever that simple. He would need a more thorough exam to confirm the worst of his fears, but Ulaz could only hope that his instincts were wrong this time.

But, he thought, listening to the faint grumble of the child's stomach- perhaps it could wait for another time. There seemed to be a far more important need to tend to right now.

"Well then," rising to his feet, Ulaz extended a hand to the child, "...perhaps our first order of business is to ensure you have a proper meal, young one. Let us deal with the needs of the physical first, and then worry about the rest later."

Slowly, the child took his hand, allowing Ulaz to haul him up onto his feet. There seemed to be an almost lack of balance to his step, as if there were some factor throwing it all off. The child himself seemed to be aware of this, grumbling to himself as he allowed Ulaz to lead him from the small sleeping quarters of the communications base, to where he took his meals.

He would not be able to keep him here, he knew. It was not built for more than one occupant, not for an extended period of time. Perhaps he could talk Kolivan into taking him to the main base- they would have to, in reality, if they wanted to run more extensive tests in order determine the root cause of his memory loss.

If the witch had taken an interest in this one, then it was prudent to find out why. He only wished that he'd had the time to download information from the prisoner transport before he'd made his escape, but he'd had to make a choice- and he chose the living, breathing child before him.

(Knowledge or death was all fine and good when you'd dedicated yourself to that cause, but he'd never enforce it on one who hadn't.)

"Can you think of anything that you wish to be called by?" Ulaz asked, helping the child into a chair, solving the mystery of his imperfect balance by the way he nearly sat on his own tail, as if it failed to factor it in. "I cannot keep calling you young one."

The child seemed to ponder this for a long moment, before shaking his head. "The witch took it."

A pause, a crinkle of a brow.

"I think."

Ulaz did not allow his breath to hitch in his throat. If that were confirmation of his worst fear... he did not like to think what it meant for the child's future.

"Would you like me to think of something?" Ulaz asked.

The child seemed to dwell on this for a moment, before giving him a curt nod. It had showed itself as vulnerable earlier, and was now drawing back in- though he did not seem intent on pushing him all the way out, for which Ulaz was glad.

"Very well then." Ulaz said, returning his nod with one of his own. "I shall endeavor to think of one."

* * *

Kethe.

Of the many names that he had thrown out to the child, this was the one that they had settled on. Were his ears more expressive, they likely would have perked at the sound of it, but they were much more akin to those of his own.

Kethe, as it turned out, had quite the appetite- enough to put a small dent into the base's food supply. It was good to see, given how skin and bones he was. He could not imagine how long it had been since he'd had a full meal.

Kolivan, as he expected, was not pleased.

Kethe had lurked in the background of the call, watching Kolivan with no small degree of wariness- but also curiosity. In the end, he agreed to allow him to bring Kethe to the main base, where they could hope to unravel the enigma that seemed to be his entire being.

With not much else to do to pass the time, they talked on the way there. Kethe's voice, once raspy with disuse, grew stronger still, which was heartening to hear. Any worries that he might have about him being feral slipped away- he seemed to give himself to his more primal instincts more easily, but he was not by any stretch of the word feral.

There was so much that he simply did not know, Ulaz found. Not knowing who Zarkon was had only been the start.

Perhaps the most alarming thing he learned was that Kethe did not even know _his own race_. He had no awareness of what a Galra was- much less that he himself, was one. All told, there was simply so much that the child did not know- not even how long he had been held captive in that ship.

He suspected even if he could give him an estimate, that it would be longer still than that. If the witch had truly stolen away his memories, then it would have been a long process, even for one of her skill. Ulaz shuddered at the thought- the child would have likely greeted each new day with the horrifying realization that more and more of his memories were slipping away from him.

Waking up to remember nothing at all must have been a blessing compared to that.

It was Antok who waited to greet them, tall and imposing as he always was, making the child seem all the smaller. Ulaz knew that underneath the mask, he was likely looking at Kethe with concern- Kolivan's displeasure, it seemed, had not been wholly directed towards himself.

That the witch's depravity knew no bounds was not uncommon knowledge amongst the Blade. All knew what sort of monster she was.

Guiding the pair inside of the base, Antok lead them to what Ulaz knew was the medical ward. At the sight of it, Kethe went tense by his side. Perhaps he possessed no memories of what was done to him, but _fear_ was something that ran deep- melded into flesh and bone as if it had always been there.

"Relax, young one. No one here is going to hurt you." Ulaz reassured him. "We wish to help you. But to do that, we will need to understand."

Kethe frowned, but slowly nodded.

"I will stay with the child until the tests are concluded." Antok spoke, the suddenness of it startling them both, though Kethe all the worse. "You have much to discuss with Kolivan, Ulaz."

"I suspect that I do." Ulaz frowned. "Antok here is a friend of mine, from my days of training. He will look after you well, Kethe. You can trust him."

Another curt nod, Kethe's gaze seeming to size Antok up. There was something of a warrior's gaze in it- a studious gaze of assessment, habit, instinct that no manner of memory theft could wash away.

The child's mystery grew more curious.

* * *

The results came back, and the child's mystery took a disturbing turn.

Pacing was not something he was accustomed to doing, nor ever truly felt the urge to do- up until this point. He only fought this new urge due to the fact that he was not alone in the room. "Kolivan, are you telling me that he is _not_ Galra?"

"No." Kolivan said frankly, his face a mask- he barely even needed the real one to conceal what he was truly thinking. "He _is_ Galra. Only more than he should be."

More than he should be. The child's lack of balance, his unfamiliarity with his own tail- a hybrid, of some kind. Or a _once_ hybrid, he thought, going over the results once more, as if they might have changed since he'd looked at them, not even a minute ago. Whatever he might have been before, there was barely a trace of it in him now- it was as if everything had been pushed out, overwritten by Galran DNA.

New sequences had been spliced in, bit by bit, piece by piece. Not only had the witch been stripping away his memories, but she'd been altering his very being at the same time. Truly, not remembering might perhaps be the best thing that could have happened to him.

There was nothing they could do to reverse the process. That much quickly became apparent.

"Do we tell him?" Ulaz asked.

"Do you think it wise?" Kolivan asked in turn- and for his leader to ask a question like that of him, he must have truly been interested in his answer.

"No." Ulaz said firmly. "No, we shouldn't."

The child must _know_ , in some way, Ulaz realized. Even if he did not remember, his body would. Keeping the truth from him would do nothing to erase that, but even so- perhaps not knowing, in this case, would be for the best. If the change were as deep as the results seemed to imply, it was possible that whatever life he had left behind him, he could no longer return to.

Waking up with no memories was bad enough. Waking up and knowing, for sure, that you were in the wrong body? He could not push that on him.

"Then we will not." Kolivan said simply. "The child's memories appear to be quite gone, but there are none of the witch's tendrils in him."

That much was good news, if nothing else.

"What will we do with him?" Ulaz asked. "We cannot just send him away Kolivan, surely you must realize this. You know as well as I that the witch never does anything for her own entertainment- there is always a purpose behind her actions."

"I fear that whatever she wanted with the child, that she had much larger plans in mind than what was already done to him." He warned, his expression grim. "He would be safest here, with the Blade of Marmora."

"Most likely you are right." Kolivan told him, his expression grim. "We will keep him here. Perhaps he can be trained."

Giving his leader a curt nod of his head, Ulaz breathed out. "Perhaps with time, he'll be able to recall something of himself."

It was... unlikely, though not impossible, Ulaz knew. This was no simple memory loss- Kethe's memories had been stolen from him, ripped away by the witch and banished into nothing. Perhaps she'd planned to implant new ones in their place- a thought which gnawed at him with dread.

"Where are you on decoding the transmissions the transport ship sent?" Kolivan asked. "If we knew who the child was, we would have some idea as to why the witch considers him so important."

"It is not going well." Ulaz admitted, with all frankness. "To go to such lengths in order to hide what kind of experiments she was conducting- she must have truly thought him vital."

"Continue to look." Kolivan instructed him. "That is all, for the moment. I am sure the child is likely anxious to see you at this point. You should go to him."

"I shall." Ulaz told him, pausing only for a moment. "Do you intend to have him join the order?"

"If he shows the potential." Kolivan said simply. "If he can pass the trials."

Recalling the gaze with which he had studied Antok, Ulaz could only smile. "I believe he just might."

* * *

He had a name now.

Kethe. Ulaz had given him many choices, but that was the one he had chosen for himself. It felt the most right out of them- he liked to think that perhaps it was close to his real name, which still remained lost to him.

The name made him feel more whole, if nothing else. He was _Kethe_ , not just a nameless prisoner.

Ulaz had brought him to the base where his people lived. They were rebels, he'd been told, who fought against Zarkon and his empire- and to that extent, the witch. If they fought against the witch, then this group of rebels, this _Blade of Marmora_ , were surely allies of his own.

The offer to join them was on the table, and it was one that he hadn't hesitated to take. Maybe he couldn't get back what was stolen from him, but if nothing else, then he could take his revenge.

Joining the Blade of Marmora wasn't so easy, though he never had any illusions that it would be. He'd have to undergo training first- in any number of things. That was fine- whatever it took, it would be worth it. It wasn't as if anything else could be taken from him at this point, other than his life.

Maybe he would even _gain_ something here.

They had taught him many things already- things about himself, about what he was. _Galra_ , they told him, the same as the rest of them. He was Galra. It was right and yet not, some deeper part of him sensed. Still, he knew not what else he might be, so he embraced the explanation that he had been given, grateful to know at least one small something about himself.

They told him that his memories had been taken from him- and that the chances that they might return were slim. He tried to deny that it pained him, tried to pretend that he would be able to make do without them. With time, he would make new memories- but it wouldn't be the same, wouldn't replace the time lost to him.

Was he even the same person as he was before? He didn't know, couldn't know. Tried not to think on it. Buried himself in his training, in his studies, in order to avoid thinking about it.

They taught him about the war, about the empire. A ten thousand year old reign was something that he just couldn't fully wrap his head around, no matter how hard he tried. How could he? His memory only extended back two months at this point, the notion of a year was far distant still.

There were things that they taught him, and things they didn't need to teach him. Whoever he might have been before, it was clear that he knew how to _fly_ \- like an instinct bred into him. He'd only needed to familiarize himself with the controls, for it all to come back to him as if it had never even left. It was a talent that he felt himself taking pride in, for he didn't have much else.

He knew how to fight, too, as it turned out. Not as well as the members of the order, but enough to get by. With proper training, his skills, rough and unpolished, would improve, and he leapt at every chance he got to do so. It was like scratching an itch that he hadn't known had existed, and at times, he had to be physically dragged away from one of their many training decks in order to get him to take a break.

Because he knew how to fight, he did- he just had no idea how to _balance_. It had improved, over the past two months, but he still found himself being thrown off when he least expected it, leaving him vulnerable, _weak_ \- and he could not, would not, have that.

A Blade by the name of Regris was put in charge of him, teaching him any number of things. He was young, younger than some of the other Blades, but older still than him- at least, everyone thought so. In truth, his age, like much everything else about himself, was something of a mystery.

Regris had been picked for his (assumed) proximity in age, but also because he too, possessed a tail. His own tail was not fully prehensile like Regris' own, but watching the older Galra seemed to help his balance right itself, to see how the motions were meant to be carried out with the appendage in mind. It was teaching his body to follow through on that, that was the trick.

He wasn't stupid, he knew what that meant.

"I don't think I used to have a tail." He told Regris one day.

"Perhaps not." Regris merely replied. "It's hard to say just what the witch did to you."

"You mean _other_ than vaporize my memories?" Kethe dryly asked.

"Other than that, yes." Regris noted, an edge of amusement on his face.

Slowly letting his gaze drift downwards, Kethe looped his tail around, resting it in his lap. He'd begun to understand it more, take control of it in a way that he hadn't his first few weeks, but on bad days, it still felt alien to him, keenly reminding him that it was _wrong_ and should not have been there.

The bad days were becoming less and less. He couldn't decide if he were grateful or not.

"Do you not like it?" Regris asked, watching him with unmasked curiosity.

Scrunching up his nose, Kethe watched as the tip of it twitched. "Sometimes."

Regris seemed to mull over this for a moment, before giving him an understanding nod of his head. "Better to be honest about it than not. Perhaps it will get easier with time."

"Maybe." Kethe mused. "I'll settle for not tripping over it."

That earns a laugh out of Regris- especially considering that's why he's _on_ the floor to begin with. Extending him a hand, Kethe takes it, allowing the older Galran to pull him up off the floor.

"Let's hope."

* * *

Kethe was a curiosity.

Kolivan took it upon himself to monitor the child's progress. It had been three months since he'd arrived at their main base, and in that time, he'd begun to show his own personality. Stubbornness was the first trait that managed to stand out- stubborn and persistent, often combined to reckless behavior.

Dedicated, for sure. When he put himself to the task of learning something, he did not stop until he'd gotten the basics down- and sometimes not even then. He could at times, be somewhat cocky, yet never entirely arrogant- an odd mix, to be sure. His instincts served him well, but could just as easily put him in danger, for he seemed to fail to share what he was thinking, and simply acted upon them without proper communication.

(Krolia. He reminded him of Krolia.)

But he had talent, that Kolivan could not deny.

His skill as a pilot, certainly, was undeniable. His memories of the how, who, and the where of it were long gone, but the skill remained behind, deeply ingrained in his body. He'd talent with the sword- though rough and untrained, still, there was potential for something much greater there.

He was also clumsy and uncoordinated, further confirming the belief that he'd not previously possessed a tail. He had been steadily improving on that front, but it would still often catch him unaware- sometimes he would still find himself sitting on his own tail, letting out a word that Kolivan was not familiar with, but was almost certain was an expletive whenever he did so.

(This _fuck_ had caught on, at least among the younger members. He was going to pretend that he hadn't heard Antok mutter it underneath his breath the other day.)

He would often find himself at a loss for the things that would slip out of him without thinking- he would use a certain turn of phrase, but then be unable to explain what it meant. They must have come from his native world, wherever that might be, and had lingered, without any of the context to go with them.

Thanks to Ulaz's work on decoding the transmissions from the transport ship, they at least had some idea as to where he came from. Or where he had been _captured_ , if nothing else.

And that, was precisely where things became interesting.

The galactic hub located at those coordinates supposedly did not actually exist. It was not until they had sent a small recon mission to them, that they discovered it was very real. Further investigation proved it also to be abandoned- though there were signs that it had been recently been active, within the past year.

It was as if once they had captured him there, they had decided to scrap the entire base. And that was very much worthy of note.

* * *

Ulaz was dead.

It was news that weighed heavily in his heart, as much as he fought not to show it.

Without Ulaz, he might have never made it off that ship. Might still be in the witch's hands- or worse. He owed so much to him, every ounce of freedom that he had, and now he was gone.

Four months might not have seemed like a lot of time to anyone else- but to Kethe, it was all that he had. In those four months, from start to finish, Ulaz had always been there- maybe not always in person, he was charged with monitoring a distant communications base, but he was still always just a transmission away.

Ulaz, who actually listened to all of his rambling, all of his vented uncertainties. Ulaz, who was the only one that he trusted enough to let him know just how it got to him sometimes, knowing nothing. Ulaz, who always seemed to understand, or at least, always tried to understand.

Ulaz, who had given up his life to save the lives of others.

It wasn't the first time Kethe had heard about this _Voltron_. He'd heard the legends, of course, but he'd heard the more recent history as well. The five paladins of Voltron, who piloted the five lions of Voltron, who combined to form the _actual_ Voltron. It sounded like something he should have trouble picturing, and yet, he never did.

They were in the company of an Altean princess- a long dead race otherwise wiped out by Zarkon, one of many. The paladins themselves came from some planet called Earth, and identified as humans, a race which had not yet developed the ability to travel beyond it's own solar system. It sounded familiar, and yet didn't, all at once.

There had been rumors, awhile back, that the red paladin had vanished, but since the red lion still flew, it would seem that they weren't true after all.

(If the way it flew was a bit different from before, nobody seemed to much notice.)

They had made contact with Ulaz, it seemed. He'd implanted coordinates into the false arm of the black paladin, when he'd helped him escape a Galra ship, and many months later, they had shown up on his doorstep.

(An odd turn of phrase, Kethe thought, wondering what a doorstep was, exactly.)

They- or at least the black paladin- had wanted to make contact with the Blade of Marmora, seeking allies in their fight against Zarkon. But they'd been followed there, the witch sending one of her beasts after them. In order to save them, Ulaz had given his own life.

What kind of _defenders of the universe_ couldn't defeat even one monster? It was a thought that sat heavy in his gut, mourning over the loss of Ulaz and feeling unsettled about thinking so ill of the paladins, for reasons that he could not fully comprehend.

It remained to be seen if they would actually come or not. Ulaz had told them to figure out how they were being tracked before they did, as none of them were too keen on the idea of leading Zarkon straight to them.

Maybe they would come, maybe they wouldn't. Kethe hoped they did- he wanted to see what sort of people they were, that Ulaz would give his own life for them.

And something more besides that. Faint, fuzzy. He couldn't get a grip on what it was, so he simply tried not to think about it.

He'd other things to worry about, to busy his time. His trials were coming, in a months time. It was Ulaz's death that had made him choose it- and he knew that everyone else was against it. Too young, they all said- in body, but most especially in mind.

Kethe didn't care. He'd chosen.

Knowledge or death.

(But not the knowledge he sought most.)

* * *

Ulaz's loss had struck Kethe deeply, Kolivan could tell.

He knew that they spoke often, and he knew that Kethe held him with great value. It was to be expected- he was his rescuer, who had freed him from dire circumstances. That his loss would shake him was anticipated- he knew nothing, and thus consequently knew nothing of loss.

He had informed Kethe of Ulaz's passing, of the choice that he had made, and the circumstances that had lead up to it. All this, he deserved to know- and if he did not tell him, Kolivan suspected he would find out on his own anyways. Kethe's temper was a trait that emerged a bit later than the others, but once it had made itself known, it was hard to miss.

His anger at Voltron for causing this loss was visible to all. His internal conflict with it, less so. Kolivan sensed that he himself did not understand the reason behind it, and as many such things like it, he kept it bottled up, hidden.

It was not the whole of the reason that he chose not to tell him everything, but it was a part of it. This information he would not allow to be spread around the base- the fewer who knew of it, the better.

Ulaz had briefed him about the paladins of Voltron, before he had gone back for them. Most pertinently, that they were currently searching for three people, all of whom were human. Sam and Matthew Holt, family of the green paladin, who had been taken by the empire alongside the Champion- and current black paladin.

But also Keith Kogane, the paladin of the red lion.

The red lion still flew, that he knew. But it's paladin was not the one that it had first chosen- it was merely allowing itself to be flown by the Altean princess, in lieu of it's own chosen paladin.

They had been searching for him for months, with no avail. He had vanished on a recon mission, presumed to be abducted by the empire. They had been interrupted by the appearance of one of the witch's beasts before they'd had the chance to go into more detail, but Kolivan suspected he already knew the _where_.

Six months ago, the red paladin- _Keith_ \- had vanished without a trace.

Six months ago, Kethe had been abducted from a hidden transport hub.

Kolivan did not believe in coincidences.

* * *

In truth, no one knew what to expect.

The trial had never before been attempted by someone with no memory. It was part of the reason that they had attempted to talk Kethe out of it- but he would not listen. Ulaz's death had lit a fire in him, one that did not seem as if it would be put out anytime soon.

It was Kolivan who had assented, in the end.

Let him try, and see what comes of it.

Kethe's stubborn perseverance took none of them by surprise- all who knew him had cause to know of it. He was wont to ignore his own limits, in favor of pushing on, always acting as if he had something to prove. That he would last as long as he did was of no surprise to anyone, nor that he would use such a sly move to get past the combat portion of the trial. These were all things that they knew, expected.

What they didn't know what to expect was what would come after.

Kolivan, who had watched over countless trials, had never seen a mindscape so completely and utterly _blank_ before, bereft of near anything. It would flicker, at times, changing in the blink of an eye and lasting just about as long. Things they recognized- the inside of a cell, glimpses of their own base.

And things they did not.

A vague flicker, earth tones and dust.

A brief glimpse of stark white and glowing blue.

The interior of a cockpit, doused in red.

Six figures, barely even silhouettes, flickering like a flame. One, marked by black, nearly melted into the void of the mindscape.

They were fragments. Small, weak, and likely all that remained behind. All that he had left.

It was one thing to be told there was nothing, and an entirely different thing to be _shown_ it. When his blade awakened, none questioned what his own trial had been- moving forward when one had nothing was perhaps the most challenging trial of them all.

Kethe gripped the transformed blade tight, as if it were a lifeline.

Likely, it was.

* * *

The paladins of Voltron were here.

They had come after all, Kethe thought to himself, unable to deny that he was brimming with curiosity. These were the people that Ulaz valued so highly, that he had given his life for them- how could he not be the least bit curious? He had to find out for himself if they had really been worth it, these _defenders of the universe_.

But it seemed Kolivan was only calling for the senior members to greet them. Most definitely not him- he'd barely only just passed his own trial two weeks ago now.

Or so he thought.

Kolivan wanted him to come.

It struck him as odd, but since it suited his needs, Kethe didn't much question it. It gave him a chance to regard these humans at his own leisure, from behind the security of his own mask, flanked on all sides by other Blades. Two of them came- the black paladin and the blue, one a pale peach, and the other a rich brown. Earth tones.

Humans. Something about their appearance struck a chord in him, though he could not understand why.

"Ulaz sent us here." The black paladin- _Shiro_ , he'd given his name as- was the one to speak. "He gave his life so that we might have a chance to forge an alliance."

He seemed to value Ulaz's sacrifice, Kethe thought. Good, as he should.

He did not know if Kolivan would agree to the alliance or not. Some part of him hoped that he would. He wanted to know more about these paladins.

In the end, an agreement was reached. The paladins would take Kolivan onto their ship with them, where they would discuss a much larger plan with the rest of their number. Kolivan would not go alone- he'd picked two other members to take with him.

Antok was a natural choice, he was always at the leader's right hand. As for the other... Regris, perhaps, or Ilun.

He did not expect Kolivan's masked gaze to shift onto him.

"Kethe. Come."

* * *

Kethe's head jerked up at the mention of his name, and Kolivan did not need to see his face to know that he was staring at him in confusion.

He was not the only one- a low murmur swept through the room at his choice. In ordinary circumstances, he would have never chosen one so young, so fresh from the trials, for a task such as this.

But these were not ordinary circumstances.

He'd a theory, and it needed confirmation. The fastest way to do that was to bring him with him, and see what came of it.

Should they prove correct... even Kolivan could not guess at what would come next.


	2. paladin side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They arrived to find only a cracked helmet and an abandoned bayard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it's the next part! I know I said at the outset that this would be told in two parts, but it looks like there will be a third part after all? I couldn't wrap up everything that I wanted to in this part without having it get too long, so the third part will be Keith's part, I think. Sometimes you never know how long something will be until you actually set out to write it!

They arrived to find only a cracked helmet and an abandoned bayard.

Other than those, not a single trace of him. It was like he had just vanished into thin air. A biorhythm scan of the transport hub showed that he was no longer on it- even when they'd done it a second, and then a third time, just so they could be sure.

When they knew that they couldn't stay any longer without risking them all being captured, they had been forced to leave. Without him- without Keith.

"It's my fault." Lance whispered. "I- I shouldn't have let him leave. I should have tried harder to stop him."

"It is not your fault, Lance." Allura spoke. "I was the one who suggested that we have a look at the hub. If there is anyone at fault here, it would be me."

"If I'd gotten there faster in Green..." Pidge trailed off, her fingers curling tight into the palm of her hands. She said no more, but in that moment, she was easy to read- she'd already lost two people to the Galra, and now she blamed herself for losing yet another.

"No." It was Shiro who spoke now. "No, we _can't_ do this. We can't get caught up in blaming ourselves for what went wrong. What we need to concentrate on doing is making it _right_."

His tone was resolute, firm. He couldn't afford to show them anything else.

Because if there was anyone to blame here, it was him.

He was the oldest here, out of all the paladins. He was supposed to be their leader, supposed to keep them safe. When they'd first landed on Arus, what felt like such a long time ago, it was the first thing that he'd made clear- he'd already lost one crew to aliens, and he didn't plan on losing another.

And it was _Keith_. Keith, who was more than just a fellow paladin to him. Keith, who was like his younger brother, like _family_. He was supposed to look after him, but where was he when he needed him the most?

It didn't even matter to him now that he had just barely escaped from the ship he'd infiltrated with Allura. To hear it all play out over their com line... Pidge's frantic voice as she arrived where Keith's signal had been, only to find him nowhere, and be unable to do anything? He could barely stand it.

He'd failed.

He'd failed Keith.

Keith, who trusted him, even when he didn't trust anyone else. Keith, who looked up to him, who had never given up on him after Kerberos. He'd failed him, yes, but now was the time to return that favor- to do everything in his power to find him, to bring him home.

He knew, all too well, just how the Galra treated their prisoners. His memory of his time as their captive was patchwork, full of holes, but he recalled just enough to know that it had been hell. And that had been when he was just a simple, random prisoner, taken by chance.

But Keith was a paladin of Voltron.

If... if they didn't find him, if they didn't get him back... he couldn't even imagine what might be in store for him.

"Where do we even start to _look_?" Pidge asked, her shoulders squared. "We don't even know where they've taken him."

"Yeah, he kind of just... vanished." Lance said. "He could be anywhere with that creepy dude by now."

"He couldn't have just _vanished_." Shiro said. "Pidge, do you have the data that you downloaded from the hub's computers?"

"I do, yeah." Glancing up at him, Pidge gave him a curt nod of her head.

"Good. We can use it to track the ships that were docked there at the same time we were." Shiro said. "It's possible Keith was taken aboard one of them. We can start looking from there."

At least it was unlikely he'd been taken aboard the ship heading to Central Command- not that it would stop him from going after him, not in the slightest. He'd fight Zarkon with nothing but his fists if he had to, if that was what it took to bring Keith home.

"Shiro's right." Allura spoke- though it was clear that she was still taking this all rather hard, feeling what she viewed as her burnt of the blame. "We _will_ find him."

* * *

One day turned into two. Two into three- and before they knew it, a week had passed.

They all had assumed that word would have spread of Keith's capture by now. That the empire would boast that they had successfully captured one of the paladins of Voltron. But there was nothing but radio silence from them on the matter- and it was leaving them all with a strong sense of unease.

"He's... he's fine, right?" The question bubbled to the surface one night during their evening meal, Hunk unable to keep it in. "They couldn't have..."

Nobody needed him to finish. It was there, in the back of their minds, a cold, constant presence- none of them wanted to think it, but it refused to go away.

None of them wanted to think that he could be dead.

"I mean, they _couldn't_ have, right?" Hunk continued. He wanted to stop, but the words wouldn't stop, like a dam breaking after trying to hold too much for too long. "Keith's- Keith's a fighter. He wouldn't give in that easily, right?"

"He's a fighter, alright." Lance mumbled, voice just barely audible. "But we all know what they do to _fighters_."

Shiro didn't even need to look up to know that everyone's gaze was fixed on him. He did anyways.

"He's not in the pits." Shiro told them- forcing himself to keep composed, forcing himself to sound resolute, resolved. "If he was, we'd have heard about it by now."

He didn't actually know that for a fact. Maybe he _was_ in the pits, right now, as they spoke, being forced to fight for his life. That Keith could survive there... likely he could, probably even better than he had. It was knowledge that brought no comfort- only made it worse, if anything.

"Then where _is_ he?" Pidge hissed. "We checked all of the ships that left the hub during that time, and none of them had any trace of Keith."

That was true too. He didn't want to admit it, but they all knew the truth- that they'd hit a dead end in their search.

"I don't know, Pidge." Shiro admitted, because he couldn't lie, not here. "But we'll find him."

* * *

When a week became two, and then three, they all knew that it couldn't be ignored any longer.

Four paladins for five lions. It was simple math. They were one paladin short, and being one paladin short meant that they couldn't form Voltron. They had somehow managed to scrape by thus far, but the call today had been too close, and if anything had gone wrong... well, there might be no one left to look for Keith.

"We need," Allura said, her shoulders tense, forcing herself to bring the subject up, "...to consider finding a new red paladin."

"So what," Pidge spoke, her glare filled with venom. "...we're just _giving up_ on Keith?"

"Nobody is giving up on anyone." Shiro told her. "This will only just be temporary. We'll find him, Pidge."

Hunk didn't mean to say it. He really didn't mean to. It just came out.

"...will we?"

* * *

The red lion accepted Allura as it's paladin, but it was clear to them all that it wasn't happy about it. They learned to form Voltron anew, but it wasn't the same. It was weaker, more fragile- as if they were all afraid of what it would mean if it became anything but.

It would be as if they'd given up on Keith.

No one wanted that.

* * *

Not many people knew it, but Shiro cleaned to cope.

He'd lost count of the number of times he'd cleaned Keith's room. When- _if_ , some darker part of him whispered- he came back, he didn't want it to be covered in a layer of dust. He wanted it to feel as if he'd never even left.

The only thing he didn't touch was his knife. That he left alone, recalling how much he had disliked it when people tried to touch it, as if he feared they'd take it away from him.

Everything else was fair game, however. Not that he had all that much- sometimes it felt too much like no one had ever lived here.

He hadn't meant to find the photograph. He didn't even know that Keith had _kept_ it, much less brought it into space with him. He still didn't know how he'd managed to talk him into it- Keith _hated_ having his photo taken. The photo they'd taken together when he'd gotten into the Galaxy Garrison was the only one Shiro even had of him- and here it was, tucked away in one of the pouches on Keith's belt.

Two months.

It had been two months since Keith had gone missing.

And all it took was a single photograph to break him.

* * *

He recovered.

He had to. Voltron couldn't afford the loss of two of its paladins.

(He kept the photograph.)

* * *

If they kept saying _six months_ , maybe they wouldn't have to acknowledge that Keith had been missing for half a year.

"He's dead, isn't he." Lance whispered at dinner, and they all desperately tried to pretend they hadn't heard him.

* * *

"I am against this."

Allura's tone was stern, unwavering, her jaw set in very much the same way. For that, Shiro could not blame her- he knew what he was proposing. Knew what the Galra had done to her, to her people- so for her to be against the idea of a potential alliance with them, even a fringe group of rebels, was not to be unexpected.

"We _need_ allies." Shiro told her.

"We will find others." Allura told him. "Ones more trustworthy."

Shiro let out a long breath, growing somewhat weary of this. "They might have information on Keith."

It was subtle, the way something in Allura's gaze softened, but also unmistakable. The silence lingered between them for a moment longer, before she finally spoke, closing her eyes least they betray her more.

"Very well."

* * *

"We're looking," Shiro began, his tone firm and resolute, betraying nothing of how he really felt, "...for one of our fellow paladins. Keith Kogane, paladin of the red lion."

"I was under the impression that the Altean princess flew the red lion." Ulaz observed, his mouth set in a tight frown.

"She does." Shiro told him. "For now, at least. But Keith flew it before."

Before the Galra captured him. Before he'd failed to protect him.

"I do not know if it will be of any assistance to you, but we do have some records of prisoners here." Ulaz told them. "I can transmit the information to your ship. When was he taken?"

"Six months ago, on a reconnaissance mission." Shiro said. "We've been looking for him ever since."

It was an answer that seemed to trouble Ulaz- but before he had a chance to question him further, the loud blaring of an alarm cut him off. The Galra Empire had tracked them here, sending one of their robeasts after them. It would seem the time for questions would have to wait.

(He wouldn't get the chance. Ulaz would instead sacrifice himself for them.)

* * *

The Blade of Marmora was willing to ally with them.

Shiro would be lying if he tried to claim that he hadn't let out a breath of relief at the news. For awhile, he'd been starting to think that Allura had been right, that coming here had been a mistake after all.

He knew that the princess- and the rest of the paladins- were still ill at ease with the idea of forging an alliance with the Galran rebels. He could understand- they had only known the Galra as the enemy, Ulaz's sacrifice not withstanding. The princess, especially, had lost much to them. It was not so unreasonable to think that they would be hesitant to trust them.

From the sound of it, they would be bringing three of their number with them back to the castle-ship, in order to go over more detailed plans. Their leader, Kolivan, would be one of their number, as would one of the Galra who had greeted them upon their arrival- a hulking behemoth by the name of Antok.

The third...

"Kethe. Come."

Shiro was not too proud to admit that his head hadn't jerked up at the name- and out of the corner of his eye, he could spot Lance doing much the same. It didn't sound _exactly_ like Keith- it was a two syllable name, less curt. But it was jarring enough to catch his attention, drawing his focus towards the Blade who carried the name.

They were small- much smaller than the other Blades. Around Lance's height, if not a little taller, if he had to guess. Hanging over one shoulder was a thick braid of black hair, the color of it making something in his chest leap. Clad in the same armor as the rest of the Blades, their face was masked from them.

But it wasn't him, he recognized in an instant. The Blade had four toes to a foot and a tail, marking him unmistakably as Galra.

He didn't even know why he'd hoped, feeling foolish for having done so. The Blade of Marmora were a group of _Galran_ rebels- they wouldn't have accepted a human as one of their number. Even if they had, Keith would have come forward the moment they'd stepped on base- even if someone tried to stop him. The Galra that joined Kolivan and Antok hadn't even so much as reacted when they'd entered.

No, this was simply a Galra with a name that was a bit similar to his own.

He half wanted to tell Kolivan to pick someone else, _anyone_ else. But it wasn't his choice.

Kolivan knew his own men the best. If he'd chosen this _Kethe_ to accompany them, then there must have been good reason for it. He'd just have to trust him.

* * *

Kolivan removed his mask.

Antok and Kethe did not.

Shiro didn't know why he was so disappointed- maybe he just thought it showed a lack of trust on their part. Or maybe there was still some small part of him that wanted to see Kethe's face, to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no way that he could possibly be Keith.

And there _was_ no way.

He didn't even know why he was considering it, other than just sheer desperation at this point. It had been so long without any word as to his fate, that at this point, he was basically just grasping at straws.

Keith had been missing for _seven months_ \- if he'd been with the Blade all that time, why would he have not made any effort to contact them? Surely he must have known they'd be looking for him. If he'd been safe, why not try and get in touch with them, and let them know?

Besides, Keith wasn't Galra. Sure, he could grow a couple of inches in seven months, but growing a _tail_? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

And the tail was real, no mistake about it. It was about the only thing that wasn't covered by the Marmoran armor, so he could see it in full. Thin, covered in lavender fur, save for the very tip which looked as if it had been dipped in ink, much like the braid of hair that hung over his shoulder.

So. No way this could be Keith. _None_.

It would be so much easier to convince himself of that were it not for the fact that his body language practically _screamed_ Keith. Watching him stand by Kolivan's side, arms folded in front of his chest, it was all too easy to visualize Keith's face, set in a serious expression as he studied the schematics. He barely spoke- but that too, was too much like Keith for him to be at ease with.

Frankly? It was starting to drive him crazy.

Why would Keith even _be_ with the Blade of Marmora? Why would he have not said anything to them? Why would he be pretending not to know them? Why would Kolivan not say anything, if one of their own really was their long missing red paladin? None of that made sense, the only real explanation being that this _wasn't_ Keith.

"Kethe," Kolivan spoke, "...you will assist the yellow paladin with retrieving the scaultrite."

Allura looked like she wanted to protest- she clearly did not like the idea of leaving one of her paladins alone with a Galra, rebel or not. But retrieving the scaultrite would not be a one man job, and they couldn't afford to divide manpower from their mission to rescue Slav, so she was forced to accept it.

Kethe merely gave a curt, wordless nod of confirmation- and god help him if that wasn't _exactly_ the kind of thing Keith would do.

* * *

"So it's uh," trying not to dwell too hard on the notion that there was a Galra alone with him in his cockpit, Hunk bit down on his lip, "...it's Kethe, right?"

How. How did he end up in this situation, Hunk found himself wondering. Sure, sure, he was glad not to have to go into the Weblum alone, but how was it that he was the one who _always_ seemed to get stuck with the worst jobs? First he had to go to a Galra infested planet to get his lion, then a Galra infested Balmera to get a crystal, and now here he was, on his way to fetch some weird mineral from some weird space worm, with a Galra.

A Galra that was their ally, sure, true enough- but still. _Galra_.

This would have been _way_ less awkward if it weren't for the weird name thing. Keith. Kethe. It wasn't just him right? He wasn't the only one who had noticed that, right?

"It's Kethe." The Galra replied, his voice distorted. There must have been some kind of filter in the mask, which made sense. Secret society and all that.

"Right, right." Hunk said with a nod. "I know we all got introduced back in the Castle, but I'm Hunk."

"I know." Kethe told him.

 _And_ awkward silence time again. Okay, he could do this.

"So, uh, you ever... you ever been inside a Weblum before?" Hunk asked- and immediately regretted it. What the hell kind of question was _that_?

"Don't know." Came the curt reply.

Okay, that was a weird answer. "You don't know?" Hunk asked. "I mean, no offense dude, but shouldn't that be like, something you should remember?"

"Probably?" Kethe responded, and Hunk swore he could _hear_ the frown on his voice. Sorry Keith, he was mentally supplying this guy with your facial expressions. "I don't remember too far back."

That. Okay. That was a weird statement.

"So do you uh, have like, amnesia or something?" Hunk asked, which _wow_ , invasive question much, good job. "Is that a thing Galra can get?"

" _Yes_." Kethe's reply was curt, and it was more than obvious that he'd managed to trip a nerve. "Look- can we just watch the video about the Weblum? I don't know how you _paladins_ do things," and uh, wow, there seemed to be some underlying issues there he was picking up on, "...but this is a mission."

"Sorry, yeah, we can- we can watch the video." Hunk stammered, scrambling to bring up the video that Coran had uploaded to the yellow lion.

Wow, Coran's video was not doing much for the awkward silence, was it? Casting a glance back towards the Blade member, Hunk couldn't help but notice how it stood, with its arms folded in front of its chest. That was... uh wow, that was totally classic Keith posture.

Maybe... maybe Keith's loss had gotten to him more than he'd thought. This guy was _Galra_ \- he didn't need to see their face to know that, all he had to do was look down and take stock of their tail, and like, the fact that they only had _four toes_. Sure, sure, they had similar names, and they even kind of _acted_ similar, but... well, Keith _wasn't_ Galra.

"So uh... how'd you end up joining the Blade?" Hunk asked. "Or is that like, something you can't remember either?"

Kethe's masked face turned towards him, and he could swear that he was scowling under it. "I was a prisoner. Ulaz freed me."

...and suddenly those issues from earlier were starting to make sense. Oh man. Did... did Kethe blame them for Ulaz's death?

"Freed you, huh?" Hunk asked. "You know, he freed Shiro too."

"So I've heard." Another curt reply- yep, this guy was _definitely_ holding a grudge against them. Aw man. How'd _he_ get stuck with the Galra with the grudge?

"So uh, I guess, I'm grateful to him?" Hunk said. "I mean, without Ulaz, none of us would be here right now, and Earth _probably_ would have been invaded by the Galra, so... yeah. He was a pretty cool guy, that Ulaz."

Kethe's tail seemed to flick in response to his words, but for the life of him, Hunk couldn't decide if that was a good flick or a bad flick. "Yeah," he spoke finally, "...he was."

Ah. Guilt seemed to surge in Hunk's chest at that. Ulaz had clearly meant something to him, no amount of voice distortion could hide that. It made sense- from the sound of it, Kethe owed like, his freedom to the guy. If he was holding his death against them, he... couldn't entirely blame him, to be honest.

If anything, it kind of helped to _humanize_ the guy.

Which, yeah, weird thing to say, since he was _Galra_ and all, but you know what? He stood by it.

"I- _we_ \- lost someone too, you know." Hunk began. "Well, not like, _lost_ lost. He's not dead. At least, we _hope_ he's not dead. But it's been like seven months since we last heard anything about him, so you know, you hold out the hope but you can't help but worry, and-"

Oh no he was babbling now. Nope, that was not good. "What I'm saying is... I understand, I think? At least a little. Ulaz seemed pretty important to you, and I'm sorry he had to make that choice for us. We should have done better. He shouldn't have had to save our butts like that."

There was a long pause at his words- and something in the air almost seemed to... _relax_? Was that the right word for it? Eh, it was close enough.

"He would have wanted his death to mean something." Kethe told him- but even through the distortion in the mask, Hunk could tell that something in it had softened. "As long as this plan works, and we can take down Zarkon, it will have."

"Also, Hunk?"

Oh wow, he'd used his name. That... felt kind of weird. Casual, like it wasn't the first time he's said it.

"Face."

"What?" Hunk blinked, color slowly draining from his own. " _Oh_."

* * *

Without the Galra haunting the halls of her ship, Allura found herself feeling vastly more at ease.

Alliance or no alliance, she was still ill at ease with the idea of bringing them into the Castle. One had been bad enough, but _three_? Two of the three hadn't even bothered to unmask, instead silently flanking their leader's side at all times, as if they were anticipating some kind of attack.

Kolivan, Antok, and _Kethe_.

Were she more petty, she would have almost thought that they were trying to rub the loss of one of their own in. Seven months had been enough time to grow used to his absence, but not nearly long enough to forget that he was once _here_.

There would be no amount of time long enough for that.

And now they had some Galra on their ship, carrying a name too similar to his own for her liking. The only reason she tolerated it at all was because she was forced to admit that they'd need them- this was a plan that would only work if everyone did their part, the Blade of Marmora included.

A plan that hinged on them being able to form Voltron.

They _could_ , she knew. They had done it many times since she'd stepped up to pilot the red lion in Keith's... in his absence. But though none of them ever so much as said it directly to her face, she knew what they all knew- that it wasn't what it once was.

What it was would have to be enough, Allura thought, grimly making her way down to the red lion's hangar. The red paladin's armor was gone now- taken alongside the one who wore it- but even if it hadn't been, she'd have never _dreamed_ of wearing it herself. Instead, she clad herself in pink, to honor the fallen- her father, her people.

Not Keith, she hoped. Please never let it be Keith.

Drawing in a long breath, Allura steadied herself. She didn't really need to take the red lion down to the Balmera- but the extra time to bond certainly would not hurt. She knew full well that she was only it's temporary pilot. It should chafe at her, but it did not- for as long as the red lion refused to fully accept her, it meant that there was a chance that Keith was still alive.

It would simply put up with her until then.

Or so she thought.

Instead she found herself faced with the red lion's particle barrier, blocking her path. Even when Keith had first been lost to them, it had never done this before- but now, no matter how she pleaded with it, telling it that now was the _worst_ time to shut her out, it would not lower it's barrier.

Frantic, she brought up the footage of the hangar, trying to decide when this development had happened. Fingers frozen over the controls, she felt her skin crawl, realizing that no sooner than had the trio of Galra entered the ship, the red lion's particle barrier had come to life.

 _Not you_ , it seemed to rumble, _him_.

* * *

"Well, that's an experience I never want to have to repeat ever again."

Slouching back in his seat now that they had gotten well and truly away from the Weblum, Hunk swore he could still feel it's stomach juices seeping into his suit. Which was silly, because they never had seeped into his suit in the first place, but like... he could feel it. He could!

And man, did it ever feel gross.

He didn't know how Kethe dealt with it, exposed tail and all. He hadn't missed the way he'd wrung it out, shaking off as much of the excess as he could, and fought the urge to offer him a towel. Were there even towels on the yellow lion? Maybe he should start stocking a few.

"Too bad about your Galra pal though." Hunk noted, sparing a glance to where Kethe was hovering behind him.

"They weren't my _pal_." Kethe seemed to hiss. "I never would have rescued them from that ship if I'd known who they were."

"Hey man, it's cool. I get it." Hunk said. "You saw someone in trouble, and you wanted to help them. That's like... _totally_ natural. Maybe more so in your case, what with the whole prisoner thing?"

Oh man, back to the silent treatment. Why did he have to go and bring up the prisoner thing? Shiro had been a prisoner of the Galra, and that was a touchy subject, even for him- so he really should have known better than to bring it up again.

"I- sorry." Hunk said. "Bad subject, right?"

Another long pause, not even the sound of Coran's informational video to fill the void of it. Which was cool, he got it- just because he'd apologized, didn't mean forgiveness would follow suit. Maybe this was just how it was going to be for the rest of the flight back, this pervasive awkward silence.

"You don't have to apologize."

And something in Hunk's chest _lurched_.

Because the vocal distortion was gone. And he knew.

He hadn't heard it in seven months, but he knew that voice. How could he forget? He kept playing over the last thing he'd said to them before he'd left the command center, over and over again in his head.

That was _Keith's voice_.

He'd wanted to whip his head around, to see with his own eyes the face that lurked behind him, mask banished- but he didn't get the chance.

Allura sent them a transmission, and faintly, Hunk could hear the mask go back up. She was in trouble, they needed to get back to the Castle at once.

Kethe- _Keith_ \- would have to wait.

* * *

He needed to go.

He could only just barely make out the sound of the yellow paladin's- _Hunk's_ \- voice, as if it came from a distant place.

He needed to go. It was calling to him.

He didn't think twice about leaving the yellow lion behind him, heading into open space. It was calling him, so he had to go to it- go towards that familiar presence, like a low rumble in the back of his mind.

It felt like home.

* * *

"That," Allura spoke, her voice stiff, "...is _not_ me."

"If that's not you, princess," Lance spoke, eyes fixed on the red lion, "...then who the hell is _that_?"

* * *

"It's Keith."

Shiro didn't look up when Hunk entered the room, nor when he spoke- his head was resting on his hands, elbows propped up on the table. For the span of a moment, he wondered if he hadn't heard him.

"I know."

Shiro's voice was weak, barely even above a whisper.

Pulling his head up, Shiro pushed forward what had been hidden in the shadow of his arms. A knife- not just any knife, Hunk knew, but _Keith's_ knife. The one Shiro told him that no one should touch.

For as long as he'd known him, the hilt had always been wrapped. Now, it's wrappings lay to the side, abandoned, forgotten. With nothing left to conceal it, the sigil on the handle leapt out at him- the same sigil that had decorated the hilt of Ulaz's blade.

The mark of the Blade of Marmora.

Hunk sat across from him, not knowing what else to say. He knew he had to tell Shiro- he sensed that he already suspected. When the battle with the robeast had ended, the others had wanted to thoroughly grill the Blade who had stolen the red lion out from under them. It was clear that none of them were happy about this development.

They thought it meant Keith was dead.

He knew it meant that he was _alive_.

Only Shiro had helped him get Kethe out of the hangar, something that Hunk had been very insistent on once he saw the ruined remains of the Blade's jet pack. Something close, _very close_ , had happened out there, with none of them around to see it, and all he had wanted to do was get him some time away to settle down.

He should be sleeping now- or well, Hunk hoped so.

"Why doesn't he," and wow, he'd never heard Shiro sound so _lost_ before, "...why doesn't he _say_ anything? Does he think that because he's," and he couldn't bring himself to finish forming the word, but Hunk knew- _Galra_ , he wanted to say, "-that we'd turn him away?"

That was the part of this whole thing that Hunk was having the most trouble processing. He'd left them as a human, and had returned to them as a Galra. The sigil on his knife just threw a whole new wrench into things.

"Shiro, I don't think... I don't think _he_ knows he's Keith." Hunk told him, wincing at the pained expression that came over the black paladin's face. "I mean... you felt that, right?"

He didn't have to specify. Shiro knew what he meant. They had _all_ felt it when they'd, against all odds, formed Voltron. They'd reached out, every last one of them, seeking answers-

-only to find a void.

If there had been anything in there, none of them knew. They'd all jerked back, away from Kethe's mindscape, as if they were trying to protect their own.

"Have you seen his...?" Shiro began, trailing off, unable to finish the question.

His face, Hunk sensed he wanted to ask. "No. But his voice... it's definitely Keith's."

"He has a _tail_." It was a stupid statement, and they both knew it.

"Yeah, yeah he does. Misplaced like, two of his toes, too." Hunk said. "That's... that's going to take some getting used to."

"How did this even happen?" Shiro asked. "The Blade of Marmora only accepts Galra to their ranks, so if Keith's with them, then he has to _be_ Galra. But he's- Keith's _human_."

Gaze dropping to the knife on the table, it's glowing sigil telling a different story, Shiro narrowed his eyes. "I _thought_ he was human."

"Maybe... maybe Keith thought that too?" Hunk offered.

"Maybe." Shiro said. "Maybe we'll never know for sure now."

"And I mean... it's not _that_ bad, is it?" Hunk ventured. "I mean, sure, Keith's Galra now, that'll take some getting used to- but he's still _alive_ , right? He's still Keith."

"Yeah, but he doesn't _know_ that." Shiro stressed. "You felt what I felt, Hunk- whatever happened to him, it's more than just memory loss. It's like... it's like they're just _gone_."

 _Is he still even Keith_ , was the silent, unspoken question.

"He exited the yellow lion in the middle of a firefight with a robeast with nothing but a jet pack." Hunk deadpanned. "Which sounds like a pretty Keith move to me."

"...that's a fair point." Shiro admitted. "So... he's Keith, I guess."

"Just purple." Hunk nodded. "And kind of fuzzy? I mean, his tail's fuzzy, so I guess the rest of him is fuzzy too?"

Unexpectedly, Shiro smiled. "Could be."

"Do we... do we tell him?" Hunk asked. "And the others. What do we tell the others? They really didn't seem hot on the whole Galra thing, but maybe if they knew it was actually _Keith_..."

"I mean, we're going to kind of have to." Shiro told him. "We both pieced it together, so everyone else is bound to eventually."

"And Keith?" Hunk asked.

"Keith..." Shiro trailed off, his gaze falling back on the knife, "...Keith deserves to know."

* * *

Midnight snack.

All he'd wanted was a midnight snack.

What he _hadn't_ wanted was to be confronted with two glowing golden eyes, leading to him to scream for the lights like he was a little girl.

And listen. It wasn't like he'd forgotten that they had a Galra on board. He totally remembered! He'd jacked Keith's lion, so he wasn't about to forget the guy anytime soon. He just didn't expect to find him in the _kitchen_ of all places, that's all!

(How did he even know where the kitchen _was_?)

"Wow, scream louder next time," The Blade had clearly not expected anyone, because his hood was down, yes, but so was his _mask_. "...there still might be someone who didn't hear you."

That voice. That _tone_.

Lance froze. What else could he do? He'd come to the kitchen for a midnight snack, not to come face to face with a _ghost_.

Suddenly he understood why forming Voltron had come so easily to them.

Ke _ith_. Ke _the_. He'd thought it was some kind of sick cosmic joke that was being played on them all, but no. Because as alien as the solid golden eyes were, as out of place as the lavender fur was, as strange as the elongated, pointed ears were, he knew that face.

The way his hair fell in front of his eyes, that stupid cowlick, the set of his jaw- these were all things that Lance knew. The shape of the nose, the shape of the mouth... Christ, no wonder he knew where the kitchen was, this was fucking-

" _Keith!?_ "

Keith- _Kethe_ \- stared at him flatly. "That's not how you pronounce my name."

"But you're-!" Lance sputtered, racking his brain, trying to process all of this. It wasn't just his face, wasn't just his voice- it was that expression too. How many times had he been on the receiving end of it? The distortion provided by the lack of pupils was not nearly enough to camouflage it as belonging to anyone other than Keith.

" _You're_ -!" Lance began again, this time jabbing out his finger as if he were making an accusation, watching as the Galra's expression switched to one of marked confusion- an expression which also mirrored one he knew from Keith.

What the hell was this? There was... there was no way this _wasn't_ Keith, but even if he put aside the weird Galra thing- and something in his brain clicked back to the Balmera, to the hangar doors- it was like he didn't even _recognize_ him! What the... had the Blade of Marmora brainwashed him or something? Or-

The void. That horrifying empty void that had been his mind space.

"I'm...?" The Galra with Keith's face asked, still looking thoroughly perplexed. "I'm what?"

 _You're Keith_ , he wanted to say. _Keith Kogane, perpetual pain in my ass_ , he wanted to say.

 _You're home_ , he wanted to say. _You came back to us_ , he wanted to say.

 _How dare you get fucking taller than me_ , he wanted to say.

Instead what came out was- "...you're having a midnight snack?"

* * *

"Lance, it's like, two in the morning, what are you-?"

"It's Keith."

"Keith." Pidge repeated, rubbing at her eyes. She didn't know what Lance was going on about, but it was way too damn early for this. " _What's_ Keith?"

"Kethe is Keith." Lance stated.

"Kethe is... Lance, he's _Galra_." She told him, wondering how he'd somehow forgotten that painfully obvious fact.

"I know!" Throwing up his hands, Lance invited himself into her room, plopping down on her bed. "Trust me, Pidge, I know how crazy that sounds. But listen- he's Keith. I swear it on my life, he's Keith."

Yup, definitely too early for this.

"Okay, so let's imagine for a moment that he's Keith." Pidge said, heaving a sigh. She wanted nothing more than to chase Lance out of her room and go back to bed, but it looked like that wasn't happening right now. "Why hasn't he said anything to us?"

"You remember when we formed Voltron with him?" Lance asked.

"That was like five hours ago, I'm not going to forget it that fast." Pidge told him. "What about it?"

"You looked into his head too, right?" Lance asked, leveling his gaze with hers.

She had. She was just trying to forget about the experience.

"There was like, nothing there." Lance told her. "I think... I think that's where his memories are supposed to be."

"So Keith hasn't said anything because he what, doesn't remember being Keith?" Pidge asked, arching a brow. "There's still the little problem about him being _Galra_ , Lance."

Lance winced. "There's... a _small_ chance that Keith might have been Galra, Pidge."

Okay, yeah, it was definitely way too early for this. "Why would Keith be Galra?"

"Remember the Balmera?" Lance asked. "How Allura told me and Keith to go seal the hangar with all the fighters shut?"

Giving him a curt nod of her head, Pidge frowned, wondering where he was going with this.

"And you know how Galra tech is like, genetically encoded or something?" Lance asked.

Again, she nodded her head.

"Keith used it." Lance told her.

"He-" Pidge began, opening and shutting her mouth. "He used it."

"He used it!" Lance repeated. "Just slapped his hand on the big ol hand print, and _boom_! Hangar doors are shut!"

That... she hated to admit it, but if that was true, then Lance had a point. But... what would that even mean, if it were true? If Keith were Galra, what did that make him? Did he _know_? Had he been some kind of spy? A sleeper agent?

Had he been working for Zarkon the whole time?

"Whoa, I can see where your brain is going there Pidge, but let's just reel back into the fact that we found him with the _Blade of Marmora_." Lance pointed out. "So like, I'm not sure how the whole _Keith has been a Galra the whole time_ thing works out, but I'm _pretty sure_ he's not some kind of super secret spy for the empire."

Right. He had a point there.

"So. Kethe." Pidge stated, drawing back to the main topic at hand. "You think he's actually Keith?"

"Oh, I don't think." Lance told her. "I _know_."

"You know." Pidge repeated, biting back a comment about how yeah, she was pretty sure Lance _didn't_ think.

"Listen, the stupid mullet might have evolved into a stupid braid, but I'd know Keith's disgusting pretty boy face anywhere." Lance told her. "Even if it _is_ covered in purple fuzz now."

"Wha- you saw his face?" Pidge blinked, now very much awake.

"Yup." Lance told her. "So... yeah. Kethe and Keith. Same person."

Why the hell had he not started out with that? "You're sure?"

"I have never been more sure of anything in my life, Pidge." Lance said. "Other than that Meatloaf Monday was a bad idea, and should never be spoken of again."

"But that's-" She began, before quickly shutting her mouth, trying to process this new information. Half of her wanted to ask if Lance had seen right- if Keith had just been missing for so long that they had all started to see his shadow in places.

And maybe she would have- if they hadn't formed Voltron. She'd seen how the red lion had flown, seen the ease with which the one behind its controls piloted it, that skill that could not be so easily replicated. Who could that be, other than Keith?

Kethe was Keith. Keith was Galra.

Keith was... Keith was _alive_.

"We have to tell Shiro." Pidge said. "And Hunk."

"What about Allura?" Lance asked.

Pursing her lips, Pidge recalled the venom that had been in Allura's voice. If... if Keith was Galra, if this was how he had come back to them, then she thought that she might be able to accept it. The Galra had taken her family from her, and she would never forgive them for that- but that wasn't Keith.

She knew that.

But _Allura_?

"...Shiro and Hunk first."

* * *

"It's Keith."

Four voices at once, four identical blinks.

"Well," it was Shiro who spoke, breaking the silence, "...glad we're all on the same page."


	3. keith side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should have been terrified when the red lion had been poised to swallow him whole, and yet all he'd felt was a sense that he'd done this before. Being inside of it... it was like a part of him had been missing this whole time, and only now, was he finally complete. The low rumble in the back of his mind, the feeling of sitting in that cockpit... it was like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at last, here it is, Keith's side, and the final part of the story! Thanks for sticking with me throughout these three chapters! There's a chance I might come back to play with this verse in the future- perhaps through some oneshots here and there, but I won't make any promises at the current moment. There's still the story that this idea diverged from that's in planning, so that'll be a thing to look forward to, whenever I do decide to tackle writing that. But for now, that's a wrap, folks!

Realistically, he knew that he _probably_ shouldn't be wandering around the castle-ship.

But he _probably_ shouldn't have eaten their food either, and the blue paladin- _Lance_ \- hadn't seemed to have a problem with that.

...or well, he thought he didn't. That whole encounter had been downright bizarre, from start to finish. Sure, he guess he could understand why he'd been surprised- the kitchen was probably not where one expected to find your unwanted guest in the middle of the night.

But look- he hadn't eaten anything since he'd left the base. He'd been _starving_. And food was something that they seemed to have no shortage of on this castle-ship.

He still didn't fully understand quite how he had found his way to the kitchen. It was like some deeper part of him knew the path, which made next to no sense to him. He'd never been here before- or at least, he was pretty sure he hadn't. _He_ might not remember it, but he was pretty sure that its crew would, had he been.

It was a mistake for him to have let the blue paladin see his face, one which he'd already corrected, bringing his mask back up. Still, that... hadn't been the reaction he'd expected. If he didn't know any better, it was almost like he'd seen a ghost.

(What the hell even _was_ a ghost?)

But the blue paladin's reaction to his face (and really, the blue paladin in _general_ , if he was going to be honest) wasn't the only thing that didn't make sense around here. He'd expected the Altean castle-ship to be more imposing, to feel unwelcoming to him- after all, he was Galra, the race that had wiped out the people who had once built it.

Yet he didn't find himself feeling ill at ease in the least. It was... _familiar_ , almost, in a way that he couldn't put his finger on.

And it wasn't just the castle-ship that felt that way.

He should have been terrified when the red lion had been poised to swallow him whole, and yet all he'd felt was a sense that he'd done this before. Being inside of it... it was like a part of him had been missing this whole time, and only now, was he finally complete. The low rumble in the back of his mind, the feeling of sitting in that cockpit... it was like coming home.

 _Paladin_ , it seemed to say to him, _home_.

And he'd formed _Voltron_ with them. _Him_! A total nobody!

It had been... it had been so familiar, like he'd done it countless times before.

Which _definitely_ didn't make any sense.

Even when he accounted for the fact that the red lion's paladin really _had_ gone missing, just like the rumors had said, there was no way it could have been _him_. The red paladin was human, just like the rest of them, but he was Galra.

Princess Allura had made her objections to working with them very clear. She didn't seem to want them on her _ship_ , much less allow one in the lions. She'd been _furious_ when he'd come out of the red lion, and she hadn't been alone- the green and blue paladins had been just as angry with him, as if he'd _asked_ the red lion to come to him.

He didn't have to ask to guess why- what the yellow paladin- _Hunk_ \- had told him back on the way to the Weblum was enough. _We've lost someone too_ , he'd said- and then he'd hurried to ramble on about how they weren't dead- or at least, he hoped they weren't. He must have meant the original red paladin.

And for the red lion to suddenly accept him as its paladin... did that mean they were dead? Was this the one thing that they had been dreading, all this time? Was he now a herald of loss, of a message that they had all been desperately hoping not to hear?

He could understand why they had been so angry, so unwilling to accept him. He didn't blame them in the least- if anything, it was the reactions of the yellow and black paladins that didn't make any sense to him. They'd... _protected_ him, almost. Shielded him from the bulk of their anger and rage, and instead had guided him from the hangar, under claims that he needed to rest.

(He'd said that he didn't, but the moment his head touched the pillow, he'd been lights out.)

If the red lion had truly accepted him as its paladin... well, he didn't know _what_ to make of that. And at such a critical time too- the success of Kolivan's plan depended on them being able to form Voltron.

What did it even see in a Galra with virtually no memories, anyways?

"What," a cold voice drew his thoughts back into focus, and Kethe turned on his heel, dimly aware that he had wandered into the residential wing of the Castle, "...are _you_ doing here?"

The princess, stiff as a board and full of cold fury.

Narrowing his eyes underneath his mask, Kethe straightened his back, meeting her gaze. Just because he understood where she was coming from, didn't mean he had to just sit here and take it.

"Do you have some kind of problem with me, princess?" He asked.

"Yes." The admission was so frank, that he had to applaud her for being so honest about it. "First you steal the red lion from us, and now you are standing in front of the one place on this ship you have no business being anywhere near."

"I didn't _steal_ anything." Kethe hissed, the fur on his tail bristling. "The red lion called to me. I didn't ask it to."

And what did she even mean, the one place he had no business being anywhere near? It wasn't like he was on the bridge, or in the engine room- he was in the _residential area_ , for crying out loud. There was nothing here that his presence could _possibly_ compromise.

"So that may be," Allura told him, her eyes narrowing, "...but that still gives you no business being here."

"And where is _here_ exactly, princess?" Kethe asked, folding his arms in front of his chest, his tail swishing angrily behind him.

"The red paladin's room." She told him. "The _real_ one."

Something in him froze at those words, turning his head to glance behind him. This was the... suddenly, everything made sense to him. No wonder she seemed so furious. Not only had he gone and taken their lion, but now he found himself standing outside of their room.

"I didn't-" Kethe began, almost seeming to deflate. "I didn't know."

"Yes, well now you do." Allura said. "And you _still_ did not answer my question. What are you even _doing_ here? We were generous enough to provide you with a room of your own, but I do _not_ recall allowing you to wander the ship. Once we get to Olkarion, I fully expect you to return to your own people."

"I don't-" Kethe began again, before stopping himself. "Look, I know you've got a problem with the Galra, and I get it. I've heard what they- what _we_ \- did to your people. But I've got _nothing_ to do with that."

"You cannot just-" Allura began.

"That was _ten thousand years_ ago, princess." Kethe hissed. "I barely even remember what I was doing _five months_ ago, so the concept of a single year is basically as far away from me as it can get- nevermind _ten thousand_ of them. So you can take your anger out on us all you want, but you can't fucking blame _me_ like I personally have something to do with it."

That seemed to cause Allura to draw back, her brows knitting together. "What do you _mean_ , you cannot remember what you were doing five months ago?"

His tail twitching, Kethe jerked his head away from her. "Why should I tell you?"

"Because this is _my_ ship." Allura pointed out. "And you are a guest."

"Pretty sure you're supposed to treat guests better, princess." Kethe remarked.

"Not if they're Galra." She shot back.

"Look, I just-!"

"Princess?" Jerking his head, Kethe turned to face the newcomer. Or newcomers, he noted- for all of the paladins had seemed to gather together.

Did anyone on this ship even sleep?

It was the black paladin who spoke, and for a brief moment, something flashed across his face as his gaze leveled with that of his own. Confusion, he recognized- and maybe a bit of hope? What the hell was _that_?

"Kethe?" The black paladin- _Shiro_ \- said his name, and there was... something about the tone in which he said it that made something in his heart lurch.

His gaze drops downwards, catching on something in the black paladin's hand. It's a knife, he realizes, but not just any knife. Though the sigil is partially hidden by virtue of how it's being held, he knows it at once- and even though he _knows_ his knife is where it should be, he still finds himself reaching back to check for it.

It's there.

"You." Jerking his gaze upwards, he narrows his eyes beneath his mask. "Why do you have that?"

It's one of their knives- a Marmoran blade. Kolivan would not just give one out to anyone- it was a symbol of their order. Only those who had passed their trials were allowed to wield one. So how was it that this human possessed one?

The question seemed to make Shiro flinch, but it wasn't with guilt, Kethe thought. Instead, he held up the knife, properly displaying it before him.

He thought he heard Allura's breath hitch in her throat. "Isn't that-?"

"Yes." Shiro told her, his gaze only briefly flickering away from him, and over towards her. "It's Keith's."

 _Keith_.

For a split second, Kethe thought they'd mispronounced his name again. But no, he still possessed his own blade, so that would make no sense. Not him, then, but someone else.

Or... his gaze flickered over towards the blue paladin, concealed beneath his mask. He'd... called him _Keith_ , hadn't he? At the time, he'd thought he'd just said his name wrong, but what if that had been exactly what he'd meant to say? But why would...?

"But how can that be?" Allura asked.

"I don't know." Shiro admitted, shaking his head. "I don't think asking him would do any good now either."

"Ask him?" Allura asked. "But how could we? Keith is-"

And all at once, her gaze turned, fixing itself upon him. It wasn't just her, either- they were _all_ looking at him. It was enough to make his fur stand on end, an uneasy feeling crawling down his spine.

"Kethe." There it was, his name, in that same hauntingly familiar tone. "Can you lower your mask?"

He had no reason to. Anonymity was important to the Blade of Marmora. He'd already made a mistake with the blue paladin, so there was no reason for him to-.

But he did.

"No." It was Allura who spoke, breaking the strange hush that fell over them. "This cannot be. _You_ cannot be."

"He is." Shiro told her. "This isn't ideal, but we _have_ to accept this, Allura."

What? What was it they all saw in his face? Casting a glance around the hall, Kethe knew that his own expression was one of puzzlement. It felt as if there was something they all understood, and he was the only one left in the dark.

"This," Shiro spoke again, taking a step forward, "...is yours."

The knife. He was offering him the knife.

"I-" Kethe began, his expression faltering. "I don't understand. I _have_ my knife."

The smile on Shiro's face was a rueful one. "Before you had that one, you had this one."

Searching his expression for some kind of answer, any kind of answer that would make sense, he nevertheless found himself reaching out, taking the knife. Holding the blade in his hands, he was struck at once by how _familiar_ it felt to him. It was a thought that made very little sense- of course it did, he had one of his own, and all were made the same.

But this...

This was different.

He _knew_ this knife. One clawed hand wrapping around the hilt, he carefully traced it's blade with his other. Just as his instincts had once told him that he was wrong, so too, did they now tell him that this was _right_.

"You." He said. "You _know_ me."

And underneath his gaze, the black paladin almost seemed to falter- before he drew in his breath, forcing whatever unbidden emotion had risen up in him back. "I do. We _all_ do."

"I'm-" Furrowing his brow, he swallowed. "Who am I?"

"Your name," Shiro began, "...is Keith Kogane."

His head began to swim, blurring his thoughts together.

"You're the red paladin."

Ah. Dimly, he could make out the scent of panic, only vaguely aware that he was staggering on his feet. So he really was all wrong.

* * *

He didn't know what he'd expected, honestly.

Alright, so that was a lie. He'd expected- _hoped_ \- that when he came to next, he would do so with his memories perfectly intact.

No such luck, it would seem. Nothing was that simple, not when it came to the _witch_. Instead, all he woke with was a keen awareness of how very much his own body was wrong- much the same as he had all those months ago, when he'd first woken with nothing, only far less frantic.

Staring down at his hands, he studied them anew. Even if he couldn't see them underneath his armor, he knew what they looked like- covered in a thin layer of lavender fur, tapering off in claws. He couldn't imagine them any differently.

But they _were_ supposed to be different, he realized now.

The red paladin of Voltron, the one who had gone missing, had been human- he knew that much. _He_ was supposed to be human. It was... a lot to take in, if he had to be honest.

He had utterly no idea as to what he was actually supposed to look like. His appearance must not have changed _completely_ \- not if they could still recognize his face. He could only base his judgements off of the paladins- the humans. Unlike the Galra, they had no claws to speak of, only blunt, rounded nails. He wondered what shade his skin had been, which of the rainbow of earth tones he'd fallen under.

He could ask, he thought. But somehow, he didn't think he was quite ready for that yet.

He knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was wrong now- but he didn't think he was prepared to know by just _how much_. He wasn't ready to face himself- or... who he'd been, he supposed.

Keith Kogane.

He wished so badly that the name would ring bells with him. But while there was a vague sense of familiarity to it, he could not, with any surety, say that it was his name. _Kethe_ still felt vastly more familiar to him- and why wouldn't it? It was the only name that he had known for months, and those months were all he had.

Clenching and unclenching his fists, feeling his claws press into his hands, he drew in a long breath. He'd found the answers he was looking for, only to be presented with new questions. If he had been human, how was it that he'd become this way? Did the Galra Empire really possess the knowledge to turn anyone they wished into one of them?

But the blade. Keith Kogane- _he_ \- possessed a Marmoran blade.

So then... was he Galra before this? If that was the case, why had nobody noticed? From what little he could gather, they'd reacted to him being Galra as if it were as huge a shock as his memory loss- so they obviously hadn't known about it.

Had... had Keith- had _he_ \- known about it?

Thinking about it obviously wasn't doing him any good. Even if he tried to question himself, he didn't have the necessary memories to provide him with answers.

Instead he set himself to gauging his surroundings. For a split second, he thought he'd been taken back to the guest room that he had been given- it was so barren, that it was an easy mistake to make.

It had been the hint of red that caught his eye that told him otherwise. Drawing his attention towards it, his gaze fell on a red and white jacket, hanging off a hook from the wall. Sweeping his gaze over the rest of the room, he realized that barren though it was, that someone had lived here at one point.

 _He'd_ lived here. This was _his_ room.

Getting to his feet, he paused, glancing down at them, watching his toes curl with a slight frown. The blue paladin had been barefoot when he'd come across him in the kitchen, and he'd counted five toes on each of his feet, none of them the same size. He'd only four- and all of them were roughly the same size, tapering off in claws, much like his hands.

No wonder his balance had been shot, he thought to himself. It wasn't just the matter of his tail, it had been a matter of his _feet_ as well.

Ugh. He could wrap his head around the idea of having once not had a tail- that he'd been well aware of for the longest time- but five toes?

Maybe he hadn't been a Galra before- or at least, hadn't _looked_ like one- but now, being a Galra was literally all that he knew. Perhaps it was just the lack of visuals to go off of, but the idea of having once been one of the Earthlings- the _humans_ \- was so foreign to him, that he didn't know what to do with it.

He'd half been worried that this knowledge would mean his balance would be shot all over again- but thankfully, that didn't seem to be the case. Over the past few months, he'd become at home in his own skin, the feeling of wrongness fading away almost as if it had never been there. It had spiked like never before last night- and though he now knew it for a fact, he didn't _feel_ it quite in the same way he had in the past.

Reaching out, Kethe touched the fabric of the jacket, frowning to himself. This was... Keith's, he guessed. Which... made it his own?

Honestly, he was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. He'd been told he was Keith Kogane, red paladin of Voltron, but he still felt like _Kethe_ \- newly inducted member of the Blade of Marmora.

Of course he did! He didn't know who Keith Kogane even was! Didn't remember the first goddamn thing about him!

But maybe... maybe he could learn.

The way the yellow paladin had spoken about his loss... it had impacted them greatly, he knew. For seven long months, they had gone without any word as to his fate- and now, when they had all started to fear that he was dead, he'd come back to them.

Come back wearing the face of the enemy.

* * *

If she had not braced herself, she would have surely flinched.

How could she not? Those were the eyes of the enemy, set in a face that was otherwise all too familiar to her. Gone were the red paladin's once nearly purple eyes, a feature that had once been so striking, replaced with nothing but one solid shade of yellow, that consumed the entirety of them. That she could still read his shock in them felt of little consequence.

If she was going to be perfectly honest, this... this _Galra_ , who wore the face of her friend- he made her skin crawl.

She knew that the others must be right- that this Galra _had_ to be Keith. The red lion had locked her out not because it had found a replacement for her, for _him_ \- but because the one it had chosen first had returned to it. It had sensed what none of them had begun to suspect yet- that its paladin was alive, and was once again, walking the halls of the castle-ship.

She wasn't so blind that she couldn't see it. It was there, in his features, those that remained untouched by... by whatever horrid thing had been done to him. In his voice, the one part of him that was just as she remembered it, almost hauntingly so.

But the worst part of it all were his memories- or lack of them. Amnesia, Hunk had told her- and it was a concept that needed to be explained to her, for losing ones memories was not something that could happen, not to an Altean.

She'd spoken to Kolivan in anger, in fury, once they had returned to Olkarion. He must have known, she thought, who he had brought with him, otherwise he never would have chosen one so fresh from his order's own trials to join them. When he confirmed that he had suspected it, she felt her blood boil- he'd known, and yet he _dared_ to think he could keep the truth from them?

When the heat of her anger cooled, she came to understand that had not been his intent. It was merely theory- and bringing Kethe- _Keith_ \- to the castle-ship had been a means to test it. He likely hadn't expected for things to unfold the way that they had.

But what he had told her... that was what _truly_ frightened her.

Zarkon's witch had done this to him. Had twisted his flesh and bone, had robbed him of everything that he had, until he had nothing left to give. If Ulaz had not come for him when he had... then perhaps Keith would truly be lost to them.

Turned against them, perhaps. Would the red lion still go to him then, even when his mind had been so thoroughly violated? They had learned that Zarkon's bond with the black lion still thrived, so it was hauntingly possible.

Perhaps, she thought, if the witch were killed, then Keith's memories might be able to return to him, her magic broken. She'd no proof of this, of course- so she kept her theory to herself.

"Keith," and she had to force herself to address him as such, some part of her still entirely unwilling to accept this, "...I would like you to come with me."

The Galra- Keith, it's _Keith_ , she had to tell herself- merely stared at her. He surely had not been expecting to be ambushed outside of his own quarters. "Have we arrived on Olkarion?"

"Yes." She told him frankly. "Some hours ago. The others thought it best you be left to rest."

She had not objected. She had seen how they'd reacted when he'd crumpled to the floor before them, his knife- the _Marmoran_ knife- clattering to the ground beside him. He carried it now, sheathed behind his back as it had always been, his other- the newer one, now hanging from his waist.

If this was all just a matter of one of her paladins having been forcibly transformed into a Galra, then this would have been much simpler. She would have been horrified- of course she would have, she couldn't _imagine_ the pain such a process would bring- but she would have been able to accept it, with just a bit of time. Now, however, there was the question of Keith's heritage hanging over them all, and the one person who might be able to answer said questions no longer knew them.

If he ever had.

She, for her own sake, had decided to think that he had not. It was the only way that she could swallow the idea of a Galra having piloted the red lion- her _father's_ lion.

"Are you taking me back to Kolivan?"

The question made her jolt- she'd half forgotten she'd told him she would be returning him to his own people. Her own words twisted like a knife in her gut, having been so unaware that she had been trying to chase away the one person that they had spent seven months- _half a year_ \- searching for so desperately.

"No." Allura said simply. "Not yet, at any rate. I would like for Coran to have a chance to examine you."

He seemed to flinch at that- he hid it well, but his tail- he had a _tail_ , now- betrayed him. "If it's an examination, I've already been looked over by-"

"I know." She cut him off, her tone far more curt than she wished. "But I must see it for myself."

He grew silent at that, but she could feel those eyes searching her face. He must have found something, because he came to a halt, and she had to force away the cold that gripped her at the idea of having shown a Galra her unprotected back.

"If it's easier, I can leave." He said. "I don't... I don't remember _any_ of what you want me to remember, but I know enough to know that none of you wanted-" and she turned just at the right time, to see how his mouth worked, as if trying to puzzle out how to speak about himself, "-me to come back looking like this."

"I can return to the Blade of Marmora, if that's... if that would be better, for everyone."

And there was... _something_ in that tone, something in that face, that for a moment, all she could see was how lost and _vulnerable_ this Galra was. It was a light in which she'd never seen Keith in- and for the span of a moment, she found herself forgetting again, that this was him.

Instead, she thought of _Kethe_. Kethe, who had woken in a cell, held captive by his own people, who knew nothing, not even of himself. Kethe, who had carved out a small world for himself in spite of all of that, only to have it, and everything that he thought he knew, turned upside down on him- and the answers he so sought only bringing with them more questions.

Shiro had been right- this _wasn't_ ideal.

Not for any of them, but _especially_ not for Keith.

She would be lying if she said that she was ready to accept this- to accept Keith, as he was now. To accept the possibility that the witch had merely brought forth to the surface what had always been there, that Keith had _always_ been Galra, even when he looked nothing like it.

But they _needed_ Voltron. And Keith, for good or for ill, seemed to truly be the red lion's paladin. They needed him- the universe needed him.

And she was a princess. She had been trained in the art of diplomacy. Which meant sometimes burying her own feelings for the sake of others. Perhaps, in time, she too, would be able to accept all of this- but until then, she would endeavor to try.

Because worn on a Galra's face or not, she _never_ wanted to see Keith looking that lost ever again.

"I cannot deny that. I do not know if I will honestly _ever_ be able to stand the sight of you like this." She told him, frank and honest, for she knew he'd see through anything else. "But you _are_ the red paladin- the red lion's own actions have made that much clear. I do not think it will accept me as its paladin again, now that it knows you are alive."

"We need you- the _universe_ needs you. So please," Allura told him, "...stay."

Keith's brow furrowed, once more searching her features- before he finally, slowly, nodded his head.

"Okay."

* * *

She had a chance to kill the witch herself.

She hadn't been able to take it.

(She'd been _Altean_.)

* * *

It took him a week to join them in the lounge.

It wasn't entirely his own idea, either. It had been the yellow paladin who pressed him into it- something about wanting the others to see him in his clothes.

He'd been the one to bring up the issue in the first place- asking him out of the blue one day why it was that he never seemed to wear anything other than his Marmoran armor. He still hadn't dared to ask for any photographs of himself, from well... _before_ , but if there was one thing that he quickly learned, it was that he used to be shorter.

That wasn't the only issue, but it was enough to prevent the clothes that had been left behind in his bedroom from fitting. The yellow paladin had taken it upon himself to correct the issue, and had vanished with the lot of them, only to resurface three days later, beaming ear to ear.

"Meet us in the lounge." he'd told him, a twinkle in his eye.

Glancing down at his hands, Kethe frowned to himself, studying his hands once more. Unlike with his armor, the fingerless gloves allowed him to see his clawed hands. The way his braid fell against the high collar of the jacket was a bit awkward- he didn't have to guess to know it had gotten longer.

Coran had told him that he still had a small trace of human in him- which he suspected was his hair. There were other Blades who had hair, but the texture of his was different, and it simply grew too fast, for it to be a Galra trait. Seven months of growth had added up over time, and he'd never really felt the urge to cut it, so he'd just taken to braiding it instead.

(He _definitely_ wasn't trying to mimic Kolivan. He'd die before he admitted that.)

But all in all... he didn't feel out of place, wearing this. He couldn't say that it felt all that familiar- but that was likely just from the way his fur rubbed against the fabric.

His ears twitching, he could make out the voices of the other paladins from inside of the lounge. Clenching and unclenching his fists, Kethe drew in a breath, steadying his nerves.

"Keith!" Hunk noticed him first- of course he had, he'd placed himself on the couch that directly faced the entrance. "You came!"

"...you told me to?" Kethe asked, tail giving a twitch of confusion.

"I gotta say-" Lance began, a grin on his face that Kethe had quickly come to associate with him prepping himself for saying something particularly annoying. "-you look _way_ more like yourself in that fashion disaster of an outfit."

Letting out a snarl of displeasure, the fur on Kethe's tail bristled with annoyance. He kind of liked these clothes, of course he'd take offense at that!

"Wow, I thought he snarled well _before_." Pidge remarked, arching a brow. "Guess in hindsight, we maybe should have seen the whole half Galra thing coming, huh?"

"Pidge." Shiro spoke up, turning his gaze briefly over towards her, before he fixed it back on Keith. "Keith, don't snarl at Lance. Lance, maybe don't purposefully antagonize Keith? We're all trying to get used to each other again, we should try to be a little more considerate."

"But purposefully antagonizing Keith is like, what he does." Pidge pointed out.

"She's kind of got a point there." Hunk admitted.

"Maybe he should try doing something else." Kethe muttered, folding his arms in front of his chest. Pausing, he couldn't help but notice that no sooner than he had, all gazes in the room had fallen squarely upon him.

Furrowing his brow, Kethe stared blankly at them. "...what?"

The four paladins simply shared a knowing look between them, heedless of the annoyed twitch of his tail. Seriously, _what_?

* * *

He found him on the training deck.

Of course he did. Some things never changed.

Keith noticed him first, before he had a chance to call out to him. He'd been in the middle of a session, and he hadn't wanted to interrupt. Turning his gaze towards him, he ended the training session. "Diplomatic meeting over?"

"Just about." Shiro told him. "Allura and Coran are wrapping things up right now. But from the sound of it, it looks like they're willing to help." Gaze dropping down, he took note of the weapon in his hand. "Trying to get used to the bayard again?"

Glancing down at the white and red sword in his hand, Keith gave him a curt nod, returning it to it's resting form. The shape of the blade was different from how he remembered it- just a subtle reminder that as much as some things were the same, there were things that were different, too.

Some were just more obvious than others.

It had been three weeks- nearly four, by now. Enough time for them to slowly grow used to Keith's altered appearance, though he knew that Allura still found herself caught in a struggle with it. The alliance with the Blade of Marmora had helped in that regard, but the deep root of hatred that was buried in her was not something that would be so easily cleared away.

He wondered how long it had taken Keith- it was hard to think of it now, when it seemed like such a natural part of him, but from what he had heard, he'd had quite the struggle in coming to grips with the reality of his tail. In a way, he thought he could sympathize- sometimes he still woke, expecting both of his arms to be flesh and blood.

"The feel of it is different." Keith supplied.

 _From what I'm used to_ , Shiro sensed he didn't say.

That Keith was grappling with his own identity, he knew full well. If he asked them questions about the past, it was _always_ in relation to Voltron, never about himself. It almost seemed like he was purposefully avoiding doing so, as if he was afraid of what he might find.

He wasn't avoiding them, not necessarily- after his first appearance in the lounge, he had begun to seek them out, at his own pace. It was clear that as apprehensive as he was to learn about himself, he still wanted to learn about _them_. It was strange to think that while they knew him, to Keith, they were all perfect strangers.

It stung. Being forgotten... even if it hadn't been by Keith's own will, it stung more than Shiro would like to admit. He'd known Keith since the boy was in middle school, he was like a younger brother to him- and now that younger brother didn't remember him at all. The reality that his memories might be gone for good was starting to settle in, and sometimes he still caught himself wondering if the Galra wearing his face really _was_ Keith.

But then he would do something that was so utterly, unmistakably Keith, and he'd forget he was ever worried.

"You'll get used to it." Shiro reassured him. "Coran says that the new red paladin armor should be finished any day now."

Keith's nose scrunched at that, and though he hadn't quite picked up the trick of reading his eyes, it didn't really matter. Keith had always been expressive, and with the addition of his new appendage, he was now even _more_ so. According to Kolivan, most tailed Galra did not typically express so much emotion through them- but Keith had yet to pick up the trick of it.

"It looks so _clunky_." The admission was so frank, that Shiro couldn't do anything but laugh.

"Yeah, I guess compared to what you're more used to, it would seem a little clunky." Shiro told him. Marmoran armor was sleek- a marvel, really. "You'll get the hang of it, don't worry."

"Mm." Keith tilted his head, his tail faintly swishing behind him. "Are the delegates gone yet?"

"They're still in the reception area." Shiro told him. "Hunk's entertaining them with pizza rolls."

A faint flick of his tail, a furrow of his brow- that subtle signal that Keith did not know what that was. "I'm sure he saved a few for you in the kitchen if you're curious."

"I'll go when the delegates are gone." Keith told him.

Shiro didn't mean to, but he couldn't help but flinch at those words. If anyone outside of Voltron knew that there was a Galra aboard the ship, they only knew him as their liaison to the Blade of Marmora- and Keith was that, it was true. He was _still_ a member of their order, and was still sometimes called away by Kolivan- but never when it would conflict with his primary duty as a paladin of Voltron.

The fact that the red paladin was Galra was something they were still keeping under wraps. Shiro had wanted to be up front and honest about it- at least, at first. But the more the Blade of Marmora assisted them, the more he had come to take notice of the way the people of the planets that they had helped to free looked at them, with mistrust.

Though he hadn't been there- today's mission hadn't required Voltron, two lions sufficed to take back Puig- he'd been told that much by Lance and Hunk. And Keith had been among their number that day- not serving as a paladin, but as part of the Marmoran ground force. Seen that firsthand, for himself.

The universe might not be ready to accept that a Galra was one of the defenders of the universe. And he didn't think they'd understand either, that he hadn't _always_ been this way. Somehow, advertising the fact that he'd been held prisoner by Zarkon's witch and had his mind tampered with by her, didn't sound like the _best_ idea.

The witch had no tendrils in Keith- as far as anyone knew, and they'd checked, _extensively_. Ulaz had likely rescued him just in the nick of time- it would seem that he had more cause to be grateful to him than he could have ever imagined.

He'd allowed Voltron to form in the first place, and then he had helped make it whole again.

Above all, hiding his identity as the red paladin had been _Keith's_ choice. Those five months of living as a member of the Blade of Marmora, of living as a _Galra_ , had made its impact on him, one that Shiro doubted that he would ever be able to shake.

He still wasn't sure if he thought of himself as Keith- or as _Kethe_. He never objected to the use of his human name, but he never protested to the use of his Galran one, either. There had been some debate among the paladins about what to call him, at first- and he'd merely shrugged and said that whichever they chose was fine.

(He'd shot down Galra Keith, though. Amnesia Keith had earned them his first snarl.)

"Fair enough." Shiro said with a nod. "Might be awhile though. Interested in having a sparring partner while you wait?"

It was an offer that made him blink. "You sure about that?"

Keith was stronger than he once was, he knew. They hadn't sparred once, not since he'd become like this, but he didn't need to fight him to know that much. Still, if he thought that would give him an edge- Shiro couldn't help but give him a faint grin. "I'm sure."

The competitive spark in his eyes was the first thing Shiro had been able to read in them for weeks- and he could only softly laugh to himself. He might be purple now, but it seemed like Keith was very much always going to be Keith.

* * *

The first time he saw his old face, it hadn't been on purpose.

He didn't know what the cause was, nor which paladin it had drifted from, only that it had come through the bond. He'd jerked away from it so sharply, that he nearly broke Voltron apart- probably _not_ his best move, all things considered.

He isolated himself in his bedroom after that, unable to bring himself to deal with the other paladins. He needed time- time to calm down, time to come to a grips with what he'd been trying to avoid this whole time.

Touching a clawed hand to his face, he peered into the mirror, studying his own features as if they were once more unfamiliar to him. It was like he was back on the communications base with Ulaz, truly seeing his own face for the first time- and not just glimpses caught in reflective surfaces.

He'd known that humans came in earth tones, but it was strange to think that _he'd_ once been so pale and hairless. Well, not _hairless_ , he'd still had hair- a thick mop of it on his head, the same color as it was now, only a fair bit shorter. But he certainly didn't have any fur, and then skin underneath it was a far cry from the shade of purple it was now.

Peach, he thought. It had been peach, once.

There had been no claws, no fangs- all rounded edges, blunt. Only the canines had been the least bit sharp, he thought, opening his mouth and peering at his own teeth. He'd depended on them to break free from his captors, what felt like nearly a lifetime ago.

No tail, but he already knew that. His ears- they had been rounded at the tips, and had been a fair bit smaller. He suspected that his range of hearing as a human had been quite sub par- and his own hearing now _still_ wasn't quite as good as Kolivan's was, or any other Galra with more expressive, mobile ears.

The biggest change, he thought, staring at his own reflection, were the eyes. He'd had _pupils_ , once, and he didn't know why he found the concept so difficult to grasp. A deep blue, nearly purple- perhaps hinting at what lay underneath all along. There had been no yellow, even in the sclera- those had been white.

One hand still touching his face, he found himself wondering how they'd been able to recognize Keith so easily in it. Searching his features a little deeper, looking past everything that marked him as Galra, he thought he could see it, maybe. The shape of his nose, the set of his jaw... little things on his face, that still bore resemblance to himself as he once was- as a human.

It was... he didn't know what to think.

He'd been avoiding talking about the past out of some dreadful fear that it would confirm what he suspected- that he _wasn't_ Keith, just some stranger than had taken their place in his skin. That the other paladins were merely humoring him- they needed Voltron, and so they would put up with this _intruder_ who had taken over their friend's body.

At least among the Blade of Marmora, he'd been able to feel confident that they had wanted _him_ there. With the paladins... no matter how connected he might feel to them while in the paladin bond, he could never be quite sure.

"Keith?"

(Perhaps deep down, they loathed calling him that.)

Drawing in a long breath, he pulled himself away from the mirror. The sound of that voice... Shiro, but he could also smell the others. They seemed... _worried_ , almost.

They _were_ worried, he realized, upon cracking upon the door to let them see him.

"Keith man, I'm _so_ sorry." Hunk spoke first, rushing, so that all of his words seemed to nearly mush together. "That was all on me. It's just, you were back in the paladin armor for the first time today, and I just-"

"What he means to say is-" Shiro cut in, his tone calm, patient, "-that if you weren't ready to see that just yet-"

"-then it was my bad. Like, _super_ my bad." Hunk hurriedly finished, awkwardly shifting on his feet.

He could only blink, glancing between the four of them. He hadn't expected an apology, of all things.

"I'm-" He began, before stopping short. "I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. I'm fine."

"You sure?" Lance asked. "Because you kind of booked it from the red lion's hangar."

"Yeah, you did just sort of take off." Pidge observed. "It's okay if you're a little freaked out, Keith."

"Now you know how _I_ felt, back in the kitchen." Lance snorted, before pausing, a slight frown on his face. "Except well, I guess its your _own_ face we're talking about here, so that's gotta be like... _a lot_ weirder, right?"

"And you've _kind of_ been avoiding the whole topic, so we just thought that maybe..." Hunk trailed off, twiddling his thumbs together. "...maybe you didn't _want_ to know what you used to look like?"

Had he been that obvious?

"I- you're right." He admitted, averting his eyes. "I kind of didn't."

There was a long silence- before he felt the sensation of a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he locked eyes with Shiro, finding something almost reassuring in them. He no longer seemed to flinch when he held his gaze, as he had in the early days. "And that's okay, Keith. There's no shame in admitting that. This whole thing can't be easy for you."

"Yeah man, like... I can't even imagine it." Hunk told him. "Like, amnesia is one thing, but waking up as a whole different race on top of that? I don't even know how you _manage_."

"Weird magic bullshit amnesia." Pidge muttered underneath her breath.

"The most bullshit." Lance agreed.

"I'm-" Opening and closing his mouth, he shook his head. It almost felt like they _cared_ about him.

And that was what caused it to sink in- to really sink in. It felt like they cared about him because they did, actually, care about him. _Him_ \- not the person that he couldn't remember being, and was still somewhat uncertain he actually was- but _him_ , here and now, with everything that meant.

Maybe... maybe it would be okay after all, for him to be _Keith_.

"I'll be fine." Kethe finally said, cracking a smile. "Really."

And he meant it.


End file.
